Two days after celebrating a key step toward getting the St. Johns River dredged, Mayor Alvin Brown asked a newly created city task force to engage in “thoughtful and deliberate discussion” about the project.

Dredging is vital to positioning Jacksonville on the global stage, Brown said: "This will change a generation."

The issues facing the task force: identifying the strategic priorities of Jaxport, engaging in a dialogue about the deepening of the river and looking at how the city could consider funding the project.

The task force will meet once a month for the next year to “plow through this project," said Patriot Transportation Holding Executive Chairman John Baker, one of the two co-chairs of the group.

“In order to come in, this ship came in with about 1,000 less containers [than a fully loaded ship],” said Taylor.

To attract business and remain competitive as other ports undergo their own projects, Taylor said Jacksonville needs to be accessible to fully loaded vessels. Now, Taylor added, containers are left on the docks — a missed opportunity.

Taylor, like many who spoke at the meeting, had high hopes for the task force, saying, “I look at you as a group that has the ability to ask tough questions and the ability to find the right path to find solutions.”

One of the tough questions asked was for a comparative study, examining other ports including Savannah and Charleston. That might include drawing on data from Jacksonville-based railroad CSX, said Pete Carpenter, a board member who retired as CEO of CSX in 1999.

The task force will also re-examine the return on investment generated by the $684 million dredging will cost. UNF Professor of Sociology David Jaffee said the task force should not rely too heavily on data or estimations from the Martin study since Martin Associates is “closely connected to the port industry.”

Still, Taylor said, when using Florida’s system of calculating return on investment for ports, for every dollar that’s invested in a port, the state sees a $14.80 return in economic activity in the state.